Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Dispatches from Jupiter

With apologies to Richard Grant, whose book, Dispatches from Pluto, is a brilliant
evocation of life and love in the Mississippi Delta. If you want to understand
the south and issues of race in America, this is the ticket and it’s a damn
fine read. I loved it.

So, on Monday we departed St. Augustine with mixed feelings
and began a journey down the east coast of Florida. We used Routes 1, 1A and
A1A successfully avoiding the interstate. It was a long, slow trip and, in
truth, I did not take many images, mostly as we left St Augustine at the
lighthouse and somewhere around Indian River when we stopped to have a picnic
lunch.

And this is what happens when you blindly rely on auto-focus

As we approached the space coast I thought it might be fun
to see the Kennedy Space Center, but we did not have time for a full-blown tour
and you really cannot approach the place unless you are taking a tour. I got
chased by a couple of guards when I tried to stop and take pictures.

As we drove we were struck by the ways in which the entire
coast was built up with random, unplanned resorts everywhere. We are much more
used to the more controlled development of the western states. We were also
struck with how the landscape moved from what we were used to in the south,
lushly forested, to the tropical. I regret not having taken a few more images
but it’s hard on travel days.

That would be less so the case on Tuesday when we drove
through Miami Beach on our way to the keys. But that would be another day.